There was no single trend in the world stock markets on Wednesday. Investors manifested low activity and focused on corporate reporting due to the absence of macroeconomic data in the U.S. and Europe. Standard & Poor’s 500 (S&P 500) has once again hit its historical high.

Apple and Microsoft prices continued to grow thanks to the positive statement reports published on Tuesday. Apple stocks renewed its high in 22 months. Profit forecasts of 68.5% of the reported companies were overestimated, and that is above the usual average level of 63%. Good data on such biotechnology companies as Biogen, Puma Biotechnology contributed to Nasdaq Composite increase. Poor quarterly reports of the aircraft manufacturer Boeing came out yesterday. Due to this, Dow Jones Industrial Average (Dow) fell. Trade turnover on U.S. exchanges was 4% below the average for the month. After the main trading session closing of NASDAQ the positive report of Facebook came out. The company stocks rose 3.5% during the additional trading session. However, currently the growth on U.S. indices futures is insignificant. The IMF lowered its outlook for the U.S. GDP growth from 2% to 1.7%, and declared that the Fed should not hurry to increase rates. Today at 12:30 CET Initial Claims and New Home Sales for June are to be released. We believe that the preliminary forecasts are negative for the stock market. Besides Amazon.com, 3M, American Airlines, Caterpillar, Ford Motor, General Motors and other companies will submit their reports.

Due to good reporting of the automobile manufacturer Daimler and chemical company Akzo Nobel,a slight increase was observed in European stock markets yesterday. Manufacturing PMI and PMI Composite of individual countries and the Eurozone as a whole will be released today in the EU from 7-00 to 8-00 CET. Early in the morning there were negative reports from BASF Corporation and Unilever, but it did not affect the market.

Nikkei continues to have active fluctuations at the neutral trend under the influence of external factors. The data on foreign trade for June came out in the morning, which was unexpectedly quite negative. Exports dropped by 2%, while they were expected to grow by 1%. Other indicators were also worse than expected. The total deficit for the first half of the year was the highest for all time of its publication. However, Nikkei index drop is still insignificant. It was supported by the weakened yen and good macroeconomic data from neighboring China. Tonight at 23-50 CET CPI for June in Japan is released. In our opinion, the forecast is negative, as the increase in consumer prices is likely to exceed considerably the target level of the Bank of Japan. Theoretically, it can also contribute to a further weakening of the yen.

In China Manufacturing PMI from HSBC in July rose to its high in a year and a half, and beat the forecasts by 52 points. We believe that it can have a positive influence on the value of commodity futures (copper, soybeans, corn and others). Since China is the world’s largest consumer of raw materials and foodstuffs.

India sold 10 million tons of wheat from the state reserves in the domestic market. Such fast disposal of a significant portion of state reserves (amounted up to 39.8 million tons before), had a positive influence on the world wheat market. The aim was to minimize harmful effects of the drought. An additional factor for the wheat price growth was the capacity increase of granaries up to 20% over the last decade, according to USDA. This year due to low grain prices American farmers began to acquire new additional mobile elevators based on the Argentinean technology.

Oil prices rose due to the reduction of its reserves in the U.S. last week by 4 million barrels. It was more than expected. Note that despite this, the United States started oil exports for the first time in 40 years by shipping a tanker with ultra light oil (gas condensate) to Japan and South Korea. World oil demand remains high. Japan increased its imports in June by 1% to 3.2 million barrels per day. Oil reserves in China dropped 2.3%.